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Can Coaching Be a REAL Career? The Honest Truth · Six Figure Certified

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: can coaching be a real career, like an actual paying career path.
• 0:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: First of all, the answer is absolutely yes, but I think the coaching industry has done a pretty bad job at explaining what a career in coaching can actually look like.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: and I understand why people are skeptical.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've been in the coaching industry for more than a decade and I've watched coaching become significantly more mainstream and I love that for us.
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love the people know what coaching is now, but I've also watched social media completely distort what people think a coach actually does.
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: So
• 0:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: We are going to talk about that today.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if we haven't met before, my name is Liv Chapman.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am the CEO of IGC Coaching School.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've been professionally coaching and training coaches since 2015.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: We are accredited by the International Coach Federation, aka the ICF.
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we are one of the few schools that not only do all of the ICF accredited coaching hours, but we offer lifetime business support.
• 1:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: So usually the coaches that come to us are the ones that want to have legitimate careers, want to build coaching businesses.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I want to talk to you today about what that actually looks like.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want you to understand the different ways that people use professional coaching skills, how coaches make money.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what I think ultimately separates the people who build long-term careers in this industry from the people who
• 1:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: don't.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So first things first, coaching is a profession.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not a business model, all right?
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think this is where a lot of the confusion starts.
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like when someone hears life coach, they immediately picture someone like starting in social media account, creating, you know,
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: talking about their life story and everything they've overcome, talking to clients on Zoom, and yes, that is absolutely one basic way to coach, and there's nothing wrong with that at all.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: But that's kind of like assuming that every accountant owns their own accounting firm, and they don't, like some might work for a company, some might specialize in taxes, some might do consulting, some might own their own firm.
• 2:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: They might become a CFO.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know why I'm using this example.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: No much about accounting at all, but it's a professional skill that can have multiple career paths.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And coaching is the same thing.
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Coaching and a coaching business is a skill-based business.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So once you actually learn how to professionally coach people, there are a lot of different ways that you can use that skill.
• 2:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I always, and you always tell me, I feel like this is great on this, but I suggest that you build a private coaching practice of one on one clients first.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can niche in any way you want.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have an excellent video on how to find your niche.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to link it here.
• 2:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can coach people, executive coaching, leadership coaching, career coaching, career transitions, business coaching, relationships, which is like the number one fastest growing coaching niche.
• 3:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Health and wellness confidence any area so you can add coaching to a profession that you're already in.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've trained a lot of people who already have a business who already in a field of work and want to add coaching on as either an offer or kind of like a complimentary skill that supports what they're already doing.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we've had people come into coach training that came from education like myself.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was a teacher of my master's and education.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was going to be a principal, but here we are, we have people from health care, HR, sales, therapy, corporate leadership, consulting so many fields and not all of them even necessarily want to quit their jobs tomorrow and become a full-time coach.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: But some do, but for other people coaching is
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a professional skill that completely changes the trajectory of the career they already have and opens doors for them to have a very legitimate business.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: So all that to say, I think a better question than like is coaching a legit career or can I actually make a career out of this is what kind of career do you actually want to build?
• 4:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So let's say magically magic wand.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: You are now a PCC, a professional certified coach through the ICF.
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: You've miraculously condensed 125 hours of training into one magic wand thingy.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And now you have all of these coaching skills.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know you're so good.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have great evaluations.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your mentor coach said you killed it.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your client testimonials are, we love them.
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: You are so good.
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you want to do?
• 4:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you want to do with those skills?
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: What kind of career or business do you want to build?
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: When coaching is a skill that you have?
• 4:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: When you know how to answer that question, that's when the fun happens.
• 4:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's when you can actually start picturing like instead of copycating or mimicking or seeing what other people are doing or not doing or being successful at or failing at, why don't you start with you?
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you want to do with those skills?
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because usually when somebody asks me like whether coaching is a real career, what they're actually asking is like, can I reliably make real money doing this?
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can I be successful at this?
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the answer is absolutely yes, and just like any other industry on the planet.
• 5:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It still requires you to get really good at it, and it still requires you to prove that you're excellent.
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no job or business that you can really get by without excellence.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think ever, in life, have I been like, I don't try to oversimplify this.
• 5:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a true career, and it takes a lot of work.
• 5:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: What I will promise you, though, is that if you are meant to do this, that this is your calling, if this is your purpose, you're going to love doing it.
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, you're going to still have freedom of time.
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're going to have an unlimited income ceiling as a coach, if you own your own business.
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the real thing is you're going to enjoy coaching.
• 6:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like whenever I feel down or distracted by like working in the business and numbers and data and tracking metrics and that, all this, even right now, I am hustling to record this in a record amount of time because I have got to pick my child up from football practice in a few.
• 6:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sweating it out, all right?
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're all in this together.
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I love doing this work.
• 6:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I love in those moments actually being able to coach someone and support them.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: In IGC, we often call it like a back to being.
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: So when someone is working so hard on their business or trying to get these organizational coaching contracts and some things don't work right away.
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: When people are actually changing people's lives when people are facilitating coaching and seeing that transformation, they never want to quit.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: But let's talk about the actual math, like what is success in the coaching industry?
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: look like.
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: So let's say you charge $200 for a coaching session.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Run it out whatever number you want.
• 7:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have another, another really, really great episode on coaching ROI.
• 7:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it links you to our ROI calculator.
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to give you some examples.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if you pull up the ROI calculator, which is also at innerglowcircle.com slash ROI, you can play this game with me.
• 7:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: We can do this together.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So let's say, for sake of easy math and maybe being borderline-brained at this late in the day, you are charging $200 a session.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're doing five sessions a week.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, so you're five coaching clients, $1,000 a week in revenue, right?
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: 10 sessions a week, you're making $2,000 a week, 15 sessions a week, you're making $3,000 a week.
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's just private coaching and one of the little things I do want to mention around when you're calculating like some people like so I only have to work five hours I usually say that for every client you want to have expect to do at least an hour of marketing to get that client.
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you want to have 10 coaching clients, you also are probably working 10 hours on your business to get those clients to market, to go to networking events, to talk to people, to send emails, all of that.
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right.
• 8:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't want to over glamourize it, but I'm also like when I saw how fast I could earn money as a coach when I was a public school teacher.
• 8:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I'm cooked.
• 8:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm done.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I got, I have to do this.
• 8:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love this and there's so much.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: more opportunity there.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, but that's just private coaching.
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just gave you numbers for one-on-one coaching.
• 8:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't even include group programs, corporate contracts, workshops, training, consulting, speaking events with so many students who land speaking gigs, which is just great.
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or other ways professional coaches can generate revenue.
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have a lot of students that are working their way up to a PCC level credential,
• 8:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I'm allowed to say the company, but there are quite a few companies now that are more of like corporate coaching.
• 9:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they offer coaching as a benefit to their employees.
• 9:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they have a large amount of coaching clients and they're hiring coaches with credentials.
• 9:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have to say that like they're really cracking down on making sure you have a credential to be employed by them.
• 9:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think the one I'm thinking of, they pay you
• 9:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think like $35 a session to start, which is obviously way less, but you have to do nothing to get those clients other than apply.
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you can play with that however you want.
• 9:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Obviously any time you own the company and you do all of the client acquisition yourself, you're making significantly more money, but it's also such a good way to supplement your income and use your coaching certification while you're progressing through training.
• 9:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And obviously, at those numbers are gross revenue, I will say.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I've said this so many times over the years.
• 9:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: My numbers, I was charging one 25 an hour, which also translated to $500 per month per client.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I needed six clients to get out of my teaching role.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I know that isn't saying, but that replaced my
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Teaching salary with a master is horrible, right?
• 10:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, so obviously you still have other expenses, taxes, marketing, whatever else you're doing, but you want to have a general idea of how much money you can make coaching.
• 10:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: There you have it, also use the ROI calculator.
• 10:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And remember, the numbers I'm giving you are coming from trained coaches.
• 10:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what people are charging, right?
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like the ICF says that international average cost-persession in North America is
• 10:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's up to you, but here's what I'll say.
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't need a million followers.
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't need hundreds of clients.
• 10:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: You need a valuable professional skill.
• 10:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And people who need that skill, once you have that, it is absolutely possible for you to turn your coaching into a real career.
• 10:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: We see it all the time.
• 10:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's not one way to do this either, and I think over the years what I've learned is that, as you evolve as a human, as you grow in your coaching abilities and skills and interests,
• 11:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is such a transferable skill.
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've known coaches that have only worked with one-on-one clients for decades now, but, you know, maybe they've moved or they've had children or they've gotten married and now or maybe they've gotten divorced.
• 11:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, one who's gotten divorced and now she does these international retreats and travels all over the world doing coaching like that.
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe they've expanded to group programs or digital courses or like I said before speaking, we've had
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: dozens of students who have become published authors, written books, gone on book tours, like it's so expansive, but I have to take you back to that first question, like if you had that magic wand, if you were fully trained and confident as a coach tomorrow, how would you want your career to look?
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: What would you want to be doing?
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: What I've said before is like,
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: IGC coaching school is like the how to your why.
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you hire a coach or you come to our school, you would learn those coaching skills, but you'd also be mentored by six and seven figure business coaches that help you figure out how to make your vision for your coaching career a reality.
• 12:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: we also offer a coaching dobs board that is constantly updated because we've been around for a while now we're constantly getting inquiries for certified coaches for different types of gigs.
• 12:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, and I'm not trying to gatekeep, but I just never know if I'm allowed to like name drop the company's or not, so they're there, okay, they're there, but
• 12:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I really hope that this helps you see that like if this is your calling and you, you know, your great at supporting people, you maybe are coaching naturally at your current career, or you've been coaching in some capacity at home or in different organizations, or you're the friend that everyone calls when their life is falling apart.
• 13:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: These things don't automatically mean that you know how to coach, right?
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, just like my newfound interest and grades anatomy doesn't make me a doctor, but it's a good starting place, a very good starting place to build on your natural skills and then take it to the next level by understanding coaching methodology ethics.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: boundaries, how to ask powerful coaching questions, active listening skills, managing progress, goal setting, accountability, I mean, I could go on and on.
• 13:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are so many different skills that are actually practiced by legitimate coaches.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: how do we actually get people to change their behaviors over time and how can you truly help someone move forward without telling them what to do or making their decisions for them?
• 13:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, a lot of this will come naturally, but you also really, really want to get great at it so that you can feel really confident
• 14:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: saying, I charge $1,000 a month for my coaching services or $300 per session or my three month package of $5,000.
• 14:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, you want to price your services up to you, but you have to learn how to coach and you have to learn how to do this really well.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: The career is something that you do build over time.
• 14:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: If it were super easy, everyone would do it successfully all the time.
• 14:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying that it's super easy.
• 14:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm saying that it's way better and way more fulfilling and way more expansive than being trapped in a job that you don't love, than wasting another year just hanging on to a 401k or benefits or whatever.
• 14:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I trust me.
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I did this.
• 14:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm so thankful every day that I got out of that cycle.
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I know it's scary and maybe you're going to be like me and the first one of your family to do something different.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if it's on your heart and it's on your mind, it's not going to go away.
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And
• 14:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to ever say just like tape the leap and the net will appear yet to a degree have a plan though.
• 15:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Have a plan and if you can't build that plan yourself which most people can't and if I didn't have to get this episode to our producer by five o'clock tonight.
• 15:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I also probably would be flailing like a fish somewhere, okay, so we all need accountability.
• 15:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: We all need a plan.
• 15:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: We all need someone to push us to stick to it.
• 15:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the human experience, but if you want to do something great, and it's not working to do it by yourself, then there's an easy fix.
• 15:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: for that.
• 15:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that just to wrap things up, the best thing that you can probably do at this point is check out the resources we've linked in this episode and figure out the vision.
• 15:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Once you have that,
• 15:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: anything can happen.
• 15:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: All you need is the support that's going to get you there.
• 15:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: The bridge, the plan, the road map, if you will.
• 15:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm kind of giggling as I say that because I'm like, that's exactly the conversation that you're going to be having with your future coach clients.
• 16:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: They may come to you and they may say, like, this just isn't working for me anymore, whether it's their marriage, their career, their relationship to their body, their parenting,
• 16:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you don't have to give them all of the answers.
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can support them on coming up with them, but what you have to know first is what do you actually want?
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm gonna end this episode with you.
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you want your coaching career to look like?
• 16:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you're brave, and if you're bold, I want you to leave it in the comments below.
• 16:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're watching, if you're listening,
• 16:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: leave us a review and leave it there.
• 16:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll still respond whatever it takes.
• 16:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: The career of your dreams is possible, but I think it's a lot harder if you just keep it in your brain and you never bring it out into the world or into a space where it's actually going to be nourished versus neglected.
• 17:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, I hope this was helpful for you.
• 17:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Check out all the resources if you have any questions.
• 17:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Please leave them in the comments and tell me all about your business aspirations.
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, I'll see you next time.